Jesus knew the Isaiah scrolls, he knew them well.
It was Isaiah who wrote, “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.”
“The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.”
“Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard,” the Lord says, “I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up.”
These words are “harsh, words of concrete action” and a will determined to alter and change the course of events…
These words are a “harsh reaction” to the faithlessness of God’s own people.
This is a text filled with “burning conflict and confrontation.” Most of us do not like “times of conflict” and “times of confrontation.” It is always an “upsetting time.” A “distraction.”
This was between Jesus and the Pharisees. Only later would it include the Sadducees, the priests, the scribes and the Jerusalem elite. It was an ever growing conflict.
It started out immediately following the “call of Matthew” – where Jesus had dinner with the so-called “scum of society”…tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners.
From the “get go” – he was “hanging out” with the wrong crowd. Pretty soon he was doing other “inappropriate things” seemingly to offend the Pharisees…and them alone.
He violated the Sabbath day, time and time again. So very early on, the Pharisees held counsel with the Herodians on “how” to destroy him.
Three years had passed and that conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees was growing hotter and hotter…by the day…and now expanding and including others…like the Jerusalem elite.
During the last week of his life, it reached a boiling – an exploding point.
Just so you know in Matthew’s gospel between chapters 21-24 you can find thirteen incidents of a growing conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees.
In those chapters – Jesus cast out the money changers, over turned their tables, released the animals for sacrifice, made a whip of cords and drove people away…
And he tells the Pharisees that the tax collectors and prostitutes would get into heaven before they ever did…
He called them a bunch of hypocrites – who were in fact, a brood of vipers – who could not escape their sentence to burn in hell…
Then he tells them they are the ones responsible for the deaths of Hebrew Prophets…
And they were the ones directly responsible for killing John the Baptizer…
Talk about in your face…
And now he has resorted to telling parable after parable against them.
As usual, his parables were always about stuff that people could picture…and relate to…
His stories rang true and people could relate to everything that he was saying…
Palestine was a favorable climate for herding and farming. It was located both by the sea and the overland trade routes. Usually there were crop surpluses, but since the Romans came to town – everything has been scarce…
Prices are higher, food is scarce, taxes are sky-rocketing and the poor found themselves selling themselves as indentured servants in order to buy food for their families…
More and more land was being controlled by foreign owners, outside interests and investors. Tenet farmers who did all the work – received only enough to keep them and their families alive…the rest went to the absentee owners. The loss of the owner’s representatives (or even their kin) would not cause any tears in Palestine.
So people could relate to the story.
Just like Isaiah of old – it was about the people’s faithlessness. And the way Jesus told the story…it was against the powerful elite of Jerusalem.
Again, you wouldn’t get so much as a tear out of the poorest of the poor, who believed themselves constantly scammed by the Temple elite.
Jesus’ parable rang true. In a matter of days they would not only see to Jesus’ crucifixion, but later – they would see to the death of some of the earliest apostles as well.
They were not good people. Jesus felt the need to call them out.
They did not like, they did not like it at all. Conflict and Confrontation were in the air.
So, is there a little Pharisee in you? You know, saying one thing and doing another?